


Fugue, Chorale

by angevin2, speakmefair



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, Bad Poetry, Dodgy Hunting Metaphors, Excessive Referentiality, Flashbacks, Handporn, M/M, Mighty Men With Their Hands, Unhealthy Use of Ink, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-24
Updated: 2011-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-15 01:24:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/pseuds/angevin2, https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward the former Duke of Aumerle finishes <i>The Master of Game.</i> It isn't nearly as much fun as the drafting process was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fugue, Chorale

**Author's Note:**

> Edward of York wrote [_The Master of Game_](http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA29&dq=master+of+game&id=tYVCAAAAIAAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false), the oldest extant English hunting manual, at least partly while in prison on suspicion of treason (he was, obviously, not convicted). It is in large part a translation of Gaston de Foix's _Livre de chasse,_ as Edward himself points out in the story, although there are additions and subtractions to make the work suitable for an English audience. All quotations from the text come from the well-known 1904 edition with an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt, who refers to the text's two authors as "mighty men with their hands." (Fnarr.) There is no evidence that Edward was working on this project as early as 1396-97 (which is when we are assuming this fic takes place), but he _could have been,_ as the original was completed ten years previously.

Edward looked down at his hands and beneath them he saw not only --

papers--

ink--

words--

and oh God _ink_ oh Christ forgive him _words_ , oh the hart and the heart and the --

but all of that and more than that, and he breathed, focused on what was truly there and not what he longed for, _wrote_ , wrote and wrote until his eyes ached for the writing, wrote words he had written before, wrote words he had been laughed at for, wrote words he --

 _Words_ , he told himself, _words, they are only words, they are only the scratchings of a quill upon paper, they only express the hunt and the chase and the mastery of it, no more, they only speak of the skill of it, they only attempt to convey the love of it._

What else could they do but attempt to convey --

O God, o God, the love of it!

"It is a fair thing to seek well the hart," his careful script informed, "and a fair thing to –"

 _Edward, what are you doing?_

His brain faltered, and he re-read the last four words, knowing where they should go and suddenly unable to continue, memory having halted him and forced a strange full stop.

\-- a fair thing to –

He knew where that should lead. He knew it and yet his mind still faltered, for the laughing voice of a dead past cried out, laughing --

 _Are you determined to frowst in here all day with your papers?_

\-- a fair thing to, a fair thing to –

 _oh God,_ he prayed, _let my mind work, let it not dissolve like sand under the bearing of water, let me remember, for it is a good thing to --_

To what? To see where his prison walls lay and how they ran with water and how close he was to breathing like Neptune before ever --

 _Edward!_ cried the insistent voice, and helpless as he always had been before it, he listened.

**

Richard's tone is commanding -- it always is -- but his eyes are indulgent. "Have you turned clerk of late?" He flicks the corner of a page, glancing idly down at a tangle of scratched-out cribs on various colorations of antlers, and Edward feels his cheeks turn the color of scarlet in grain as Richard peers carefully at the text, trying to decipher Edward's hand.

"'The sixth year a hart of ten,'" he reads, "'and then first is he chaseable, for always before shall he be called but rascal or folly...'" He lifts an amused eyebrow. "Or, I suppose, satirist?"

"Oh aye, a satiric hart in full horn, but men call them satyrs and grant to them a legend when it is so, and so all is written and done! Far better and easier to sing a known song than to – as I do – give what time is at their fingertips to the unsung and commonplace itemisation of a hart, do you not think?" Edward is equal to this task, that of amusing Richard and indulging Richard, and of quietly wishing that Richard would get out and leave him be to his work, no matter what he may think of the paltry efforts that work may beget.

"But not _horned_ ," Richard murmurs, the eyebrow lowering, and Edward's hand jerks, sending a skitter of ink across his last word, a pen's mouse-feet obliterating his care.

"Not as such." Edward _almost_ manages to keep the laughter out of his voice, and substantially more of the _get out of my damn study, I am working,_ which one cannot really say to a king even when such interruptions do not habitually end with everyone naked. He clutches his pen and swallows hard, pondering whether or not he _actually_ wants Richard to get out of his damn study at all, but Richard has already turned his attention -- though not before trailing his long fingers over the curve of Edward's ear and back through his hair -- to a pile of papers on the other side of the room.

This is an impending disaster. He has a _system._ It does not _look_ like a system, but nevertheless.

"Richard!" he cries, despairingly, and Richard turns, smirking like the very devil.

"I think you may be the first poet ever to refuse royal patronage," he says, and Edward's stomach churns: _Oh, God, he found the poetry._

He tries, incredibly hard, to think of the least horrific lines Richard might have seen. Unsurprisingly, nothing comes to mind, because there really isn't much to choose between

 _I hear the tolls that church-bells ring  
And every sound means death to me_

and his horrible attempt at troubadour song, which had ended up in

 _Tell him whom my heart loves, that Norwich would find the golden net  
And fling at his feet the moon, if he only dared._

It's a real gamble on what would be worse.

"Oh, Edward, don't look so tragic," Richard continues, grinning now. "It's not as though I'm planning on letting John Gower share my bed, after all."

This mental image is far worse than that of Richard reading his troubadour poetry, and Edward splutters for a moment before forcing out "Your Majesty is a wise man."

**

Edward drew in a breath, and tried to continue.

"a fair thing well to harbour him...."

Oh, a fair thing to harbour the White Hart! Edward's left hand closed upon a badge over his breast that no longer existed; and his fingers whimpered for its lack, though not a sound escaped him.

A fair thing, a fair thing, a kingly thing and a good thing and a true thing and oh the lack of its embroidered love burned more than if he still wore that badge and the cloth had become flame...

**

"His Majesty has _eyes,_ " Richard says. "And a preference for not swiving partisans of our _redoubted_ cousin Derby."

 _Oh, mother of God, the Derby rant_ \-- Edward has been hearing it increasingly often of late. _On the one hand, it might distract Richard from his too-amused fumblings with my papers. On the other hand, it might distract him from --_

Edward hurriedly crosses the room -- he's knocked his papers to the floor, but no matter, these are still fresh in his mind -- then, affecting a probably-unconvincing languor, presses himself to Richard's back.

"Let's not think about him," he says, wrapping his arms about Richard's shoulders (he has to reach up, _and_ stand on tiptoe, to do so, but that doesn't matter).

He can _hear_ the evil smirk in Richard's voice.

"You have ink _all over your fingers,_ " Richard murmurs.

"I can't imagine why," Edward replies, and the last little vowel is swallowed up and caught and netted as badly as his worst poetry attempts, as Richard takes his hands and brings them to his mouth, and lips at the calloused bases where they meet as though he were a horse gathering the last of an apple; soft and warm and wet and demanding, and Edward tries not to cry out, for then and if he did, it would not be _liege, highness, majesty_ but –

"Richard!"

"Paper and ink. Edward of words."

Teeth graze over his beating veins, threaten the skin.

"Edward," Richard repeats, and the lipping mouth moves up, takes in his thumb, and _sucks_. Edward can feel the pulse in the tip of his thumb quicken against Richard's tongue, the steady ache in his groin grow more insistent; he frees his other hand and winds it, trembling, in Richard's hair, and tries to breathe. Richard looks up at him through heavy-lidded eyes; he releases Edward's thumb, but twines his own fingers through Edward's, stark white against Edward's ink-stained skin, and then he leans in and murmurs, against Edward's ear --

"You should probably lock the door."

**

The ink was blotted as Edward wept, remembering, and his hand still moved, and the words still appeared:

"and a fair thing to move him, and a fair thing to hunt him..."

**

Lust-stunned, obedient, half-drowsed with need, Edward does, and when he comes back, Richard is still turned to him, still asking something that Edward is uncertain of.

He can only offer his hands once more, mute and appealing, and Richard holds his eyes for a second, letting them both see the difference between what was seen and unseen and what is to happen now, and then lowers his head to begin kissing Edward's hands once more, but this time beginning with his fingers, slow and sure and possessive.

Richard's tongue laves the small tender parts of his skin where jagged cuticles are about to tear; it pushes down the hard and fragile-held skin and insists on blood, and like a succubus unowned, it laps at the results.

Edward presses his body in; feels every curve and shift of Richard's shoulders, his ribs, his every bone; and finds that his own mouth has found its way to that small vulnerability that even a king possesses, that he is moving his own lips and teeth and tongue to the rhythm of Richard's ink-blood gathering sucking, over the small sweet white hidden patch of skin that lies under Richard's golden hair, pushing the heavy jewelled collar down with his chin, grazing the traces of perfumed water away from his mouth with his teeth. With his free hand he begins unbuttoning Richard's gown; he presses a kiss to the pulse at the base of his throat, and Richard sighs against his fingers. The ink on Edward's hands leaves dark smudges on Richard's fair skin, trailing down his throat and across his collarbone, and with his lips he traces the marks he's made --

**

"Oh God! Oh Richard!" It was a heart-cry, a blood-cry, and all unheard. "I miss you..."

 _A fair thing is the curée, and a fair thing to undo him well, and for to raise the rights..._

**

\-- and Richard's hand is fumbling at his laces, his long fingers tracing the length of Edward's yard, and Edward feels his knees buckle, feels Richard's lips curving upward around his own fingers, and then he is on his back among the rushes and Richard is pressed against him, kissing his mouth again and again, and his lips taste of iron gall.

"And on my mouth, my mouth, my mouth," Edward mutters nonsensically, and Richard cries out with high laughter and shouts; "No Abelard you!" -- and as if to illustrate the point his hand curls between Edward's legs, and Edward, his breath hitching in his throat, pulls Richard down to kiss him again as he spills into Richard's hand.

**

Edward remembered, and remembered, and wrote --

"--and there is no such good hunter nor such good hounds, but that many times fail to slay the hart –"

And once, once and long ago, Richard had asked him –

"Would you live for me, Ned?"

"I would _die_ for you, what do you –"

"Would you live for me?" There had been impossible, exhausted water in Richard's eyes, and he had blinked, one drop caught on long lashes, and Edward, unthinking, had caught it on his finger; brought it to his mouth, listened even as he tasted sweet-salt regret. "Would you live for me?"

"Yes," Edward said and says and vows; Edward amidst his walls; Edward imprisoned.

"Yes."

"Yes."

**

"You would fling the moon at my feet, would you?" Richard says, his fingers tracing idle patterns on Edward's chest, and Edward groans, in a decidedly non-lustful manner.

"I suppose it's no good pretending that's about someone else," he says.

Richard laughs. "It may qualify as high treason to pretend it's about someone else."

"Not good enough for high treason," Edward murmurs, wrapping an arm about Richard's shoulders, and Richard sighs and plucks a rush from Edward's hair, casting it lightly aside.

"What was it," he says, "that you were so keen to write, before I cruelly tore you from your labor?"

Edward swallows. "It was a sort of -- an encomium, I suppose," he says. "On hunting the -- the hart."

"Indeed?" That devil-smirk again, pulling at the corners of Richard's lips. "I should like to hear it."

Edward, sighing inwardly, reaches back across the floor to what is now an entirely hopeless mess of papers, and discards and fumbles and cringes his way through them until he finds the right one.

"Right," he mutters, feeling his cheeks grow hot again, and thanking God quietly that Richard has not turned up the passage on the hart in rut. "'Then it is fair to hunt the hart, for it is a fair thing to seek well a hart -- '"

Richard's smirk has already progressed to a markedly diabolical grin.

"' -- and a fair thing well to harbour him, and a fair thing to move him, and a fair thing to hunt him, and a fair thing to retrieve him, and a fair thing to be at the abbay, whether it be on water or on land. A fair thing is the curée, and a fair thing to undo him well -- '" ("Indeed," Richard interrupts) "'-- and for to raise the rights. And a well fair thing and good is the devision and it be a good deer. In so much that considering all things I hold that it is the fairest hunting, that any man may hunt after.'"

Richard has been laughing increasingly harder since somewhere around _a fair thing to move him,_ and by the time Edward has finished the passage he can no longer resist joining him.

"I can see where your mind is at, Edward," Richard says, and Edward tries and fails to frown.

"It's from the French, really, you know," he mutters. "Gaston de Foix -- "

"Of course," Richard says, and kisses him.

**

Edward, one hand pressed to his mouth as though trying to keep that kiss impressed upon his lips, forced the blunt fingers of his other hand to craft out the words he needed to gain his freedom.

 _To the honour and reverence of you my right worshipful and dread Lord Henry by the grace of God eldest son and heir..._

Dissolute, disarming, and almost disowned Henry, the darling of the crowds, the love of the waiting people.

Hal, Harry, Henry, who had loved Richard too, once, and been loved by him, and knew –

No.

Hal could not know. He could not know what it felt like to be loved by Richard, to love him, to be with him and near him and by him in all things –

Edward wrote it all to him, while he seemed to give that mouth-honour Hal so easily possessed a new credence –

 _Though I be unworthy, I am Master of this Game with that noble prince your Father our all dear sovereign and liege Lord aforesaid._

Edward could say it, write it, give that tongued-syllable parroting words for all truth, while Hal could only imagine, and believe, and perhaps make amends for a long-ago sorrow.

 _Remember_.

"Would you live for me, Ned?"

Edward wrote, and lived.

 _And as I would not that his hunters nor yours that now be or that should come hereafter did not know the perfection of this art, I shall leave for these this simple memorial, for as Chaucer saith in his prologue of "The XXV Good Women": "By writing have men mind of things passed, for writing is the key of all good remembrance."_

"I remember," he said to his shadowy stone walls. "I remember."

 _"You would fling the moon at my feet, would you?"_

"No, my liege, my love, my king," he said to the silence, as the candle guttered, and he pinched out the last bad light, thinking, as his fingers glowed red at their tips, of how Richard's bright hair felt between their flickering ends. "I fling this at the feet of Derby's son."


End file.
